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Here's the shocking, shocking footage of bigfoot.... Er, I mean, Cousins, punching a Louisville fan. Only it doesn't look like Cousins, because the player here is wearing a sleeve that Cousins doesn't use....

I'm having trouble seeing this account from the alleged victim in that video:

"I had my head down, just kind of plowing through crowd, just because you want to get past the girls in the yellow coats. So as Im doing that, my heads down and I bump into this big body. And, of course, I look up and its none other than Cousins. Im like, Great, biggest guy in the whole Coliseum right now. First he gives me a little chicken wing and then I get like a cold **** in my right cheek, and man it knocked me for a loop. He gave me at least two good licks.

Finally, from Canis originally, here is one of Cousins' most conspicuous "shouting back at the coach" incidents:

Watch at 0:25, and tell me he wasn't just a moment late going after the basketball. ("He was just kind've swiping, hoping to hit the ball....") Then interpret the moment's interaction with Calipari. Out of control?

This game served as a reminder of how good Cousins can ultimately become if he exerts consistent effort and maximizes his talents.

Cousins runs the floor well at times, but there are also instances when his sub-par conditioning and desire come into play, and he is one of the last players down the hardwood.

Cousins is able to take up a ton of space around the rim with that body for rebounding, though he tends to rely on his size a bit much at times instead of fundamental boxing out. His rotations were very good last night, as seen by the two charges that he drew against South Atlanta players. How good of a defender Cousins wants to be is going to eventually come down to what sort of effort he chooses to exert on this end.

His effort lapses and conditioning must improve if he hopes to reach his maximum draft potential,....

This character stuff is starting to look like a tempest in a teapot. The slap below Butler's beltline looks like a flop to me on Butler's part. Maybe a little sting, but I certainly could see why Cousins didn't think he did anything. And the last one with the scramble on the floor, Cousins gets a serious knee to the face, inadvertent I would guess, but then he rolls over with forearms pushing (not striking) to the neck and head. Sure it was intentional but he thought he got kneed MMA style. If this is his bad rep, I say draft him #3 with no qualms.

This game served as a reminder of how good Cousins can ultimately become if he exerts consistent effort and maximizes his talents.

Cousins runs the floor well at times, but there are also instances when his sub-par conditioning and desire come into play, and he is one of the last players down the hardwood.

Cousins is able to take up a ton of space around the rim with that body for rebounding, though he tends to rely on his size a bit much at times instead of fundamental boxing out. His rotations were very good last night, as seen by the two charges that he drew against South Atlanta players. How good of a defender Cousins wants to be is going to eventually come down to what sort of effort he chooses to exert on this end.

His effort lapses and conditioning must improve if he hopes to reach his maximum draft potential,....

Anyone who watched the last half of Kentucky's season can see that Cousins does not show lack of effort tendencies. If we didn't so need Wall or Turner, Cousins should be #1. The guy will be the dominant center of his era. He has shown more as a freshman than Brook Lopez did in his multiple years in college. Mark my words.

Whether we can tell anything at all about Cousins, as a personality, is an open question.

It sure is odd how many people seem to absolutely know about the kid though. I've seen multiple posters on more than one site telling the same story about how a friend of theirs saw Cousins attacking people at parties on campus. It's a scary-sounding story, for sure. Supposedly he's out of control, confronting people for nothing and spoiling for a fight. But those same sorts of amplified echo-chamber stories get told about these youtube videos, and then you look at them.... Is that even Cousins in the one with the supposed punch? Seriously, bigfoot videos are clearer. The thing about his confronting his coach seems completely overblown. NBA players have bigger conflicts with their coaches routinely. Basically he was excitable. He was a kid.

Background checks by the teams had better be a lot more thorough than this stuff. 'Cause what I mostly see is a reputation that's blown all out of proportion.

Whether we can tell anything at all about Cousins, as a personality, is an open question.

It sure is odd how many people seem to absolutely know about the kid though. I've seen multiple posters on more than one site telling the same story about how a friend of theirs saw Cousins attacking people at parties on campus. It's a scary-sounding story, for sure. Supposedly he's out of control, confronting people for nothing and spoiling for a fight. But those same sorts of amplified echo-chamber stories get told about these youtube videos, and then you look at them.... Is that even Cousins in the one with the supposed punch? Seriously, bigfoot videos are clearer. The thing about his confronting his coach seems completely overblown. NBA players have bigger conflicts with their coaches routinely. Basically he was excitable. He was a kid.

Background checks by the teams had better be a lot more thorough than this stuff. 'Cause what I mostly see is a reputation that's blown all out of proportion.

Cousins does need to mature, that's for sure. No one doubts that. I just think it's strange how Cousins is constantly knocked for character and others skate by.

John Wall on the other hand is the consensus #1 guy. No one questions his character despite a few minor incidents. He was cited for B and E last year though for breaking into an unoccupied home as a high schooler. Then there's this quote:

“I didn’t think I played that bad. I don’t know what to expect. [Calipari]’s probably going to say I played bad today, too. I just try not to listen to him and go out and play basketball and try and help my team win.”

He disagrees with the coach and then states he trys not to listen to him. Both the interview and the B/E are pretty innocuous, but what if it were Cousins that did both? What would folks think if Cousins was cited for B/E? Or, talked against his coach in an interview?

I like Wall a lot, but he's not perfect. The point is that we need to seriously research all of these guys.

Wall is a lock for the top 2. Turner the top 3 and likely top 2 unless someone falls in love with Cousins. Cousins could slip though because of the character issues and if he does I'd do almost anything to move up for him AND Turner if we didn't have to give up Rubio.

“Ask all 30 teams about DeMarcus Cousins’ temper and you’ll get 30 different answers,” an NBA executive said last weekend. “I think that whole issue is overblown.

“From the first game of the season to the NCAA tournament, people have been sitting on the edge of their chairs waiting for that kid to mess up, and he hasn’t.

“Instead he just continues to kick some serious ***.”

Nice find, I hadn't seen that before.

Cousins obviously could do some things in a more mature fashion, but I thought the quotes from Calipari were interesting.

Calipari said he couldn’t be more impressed with Cousins’ personality and the way he respects his coaches and teammates.

“He’s not some self-absorbed jag-off,” Calipari said. “He’s really not. He’s got a huge heart for other people. He cares about how they feel.”

Sounds like a kid who is, and needs to keep maturing.

Again, I'd research this kid as much as possible. Depending on his measurements he projects like a more efficient/better rebounding version of Brook Lopez. Likely just a big with a reported reach of 7'6" just longer than Lopez. Cousins can't quite shoot FTs as well, but he's remarkably more efficient offensively than Lopez was in college, a much much better rebounder (he's at an elite level here and this skill translates well to the pros) and is just as athletic if no more than Lopez was/is.

I like Wall a lot, but my thoughts on him are stagnated in that he's pretty similar in college production wise to Cal's last 2 PGs, Rose and Evans. Wall is going to be very good if he mirrors those 2, but how good is that? Rose and Evans both look like very good to great players, but are they the kind of players that will elevate a team to greatness? They seem like the kind of guys that will top out with teams around 50 wins and the 2nd round of the playoffs.

I think Wall compares more to Rose than Evans, so looking at it another way, would you take Rose or Brook Lopez right now? Lopez is the center that is much much harder to find than a very good, but not elite guard. Considering that we've potentially got Rubio (another PG like Wall) coming over, it makes sense to me to consider Cousins with the #2 pick. We don't have a true center.

There's long time season ticket holder who posts over at Canis that suggests that Turner and Favors are the FO favorites right now if we don't get #1 (Wall). I truly hope they seriously consider Cousins in the equation. If we don't get Turner, I'd still be quite happy to take Cousins #3 and follow that up with James Anderson at 16. Paul George at 23 for potential. Trade Al for a wing like Deng (or preferrably for Granger if we could add Brewer and/or Flynn in some package, maybe Ford/D. Jones).